Investigative Journalism Fund

Revelatory reporting that drives change

About

Training the next generation

The Medill Investigative Lab at Northwestern University’s renowned Medill School of Journalism has partnered for three years with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to produce high-impact stories that expose public corruption and injustices while training the next generation at the highest level of our profession.

Located in Washington, D.C., the Lab’s students have joined with the Post-Gazette’s veteran reporters on a range of local and regional stories that have prompted government inquiries and public policy changes and provided a voice for the area’s most disadvantaged citizens.

Under the direction of Debbie Cenziper, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and a tenured professor at Medill, the Lab is now looking for ways to strengthen the watchdog program even more and extend its reach deeper into Western Pennsylvania and the surrounding region.

With additional funding, Debbie will be able to oversee a more permanent partnership between Medill and the Post-Gazette to focus specifically on critical problems in Pittsburgh and the region, producing impactful accountability stories and enterprise projects.

Investigations

Watchdog reporting that makes a difference

With Every Breath

A joint investigation two years ago between the Lab, the Post-Gazette and ProPublica about the nation’s largest medical device recall – toxic breathing machines made by Pittsburgh’s Philips Respironics – prompted a shutdown of the company’s U.S. manufacturing and a federal inquiry into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s handling of the crisis.

The company also agreed to pay $1 billion to patients who had used the dangerous machines, which were linked to more than 560 deaths and thousands of illnesses.

2023 Winner, George Polk Award for Medical Reporting
2024 Finalist, Goldsmith Prize

Black Lung Epidemic

The Lab also partnered with the Post-Gazette on a revelatory series about the ravages of black lung disease and government regulatory failures that have allowed coal operators in Pennsylvania and West Virginia to expose workers to rampant dangers that have led to the worst outbreak of the disease in decades. For the past three years, students have been instrumental in the Post-Gazette’s reporting about this industry, producing stories that combine sophisticated data analysis with humane, on-the-ground reporting in Coal Country and Washington, D.C.

2024 Finalist, Golden Quill for Excellence in Collaboration
2025 Finalist, Golden Quill for Excellence in Collaboration

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

ICIJ

ProPublica

Washington Post

Support

Your support helps strenghten investigative journalism

Launched six years ago, the Lab is grounded in a fundamental premise: The best way to learn journalism is to do journalism. Undergraduate and graduate students in this highly competitive reporting program hone their skills by studying budgets, court cases and crime logs, interviewing stakeholders and public officials, probing critical data and trends and traveling to communities across the country.

This new plan would include bringing on Michael Sallah, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and current deputy managing editor for the Post-Gazette, to help lead the lab and direct the coverage in Pittsburgh. After spending nearly five years at the Post-Gazette, Michael is intimately familiar with key problems affecting Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and has overseen some of the news organization’s most ambitious projects.

Some of those stories include revelations about international money laundering in the U.S. steel industry and sweeping failures by Pittsburgh government leaders to repair the city’s aging bridges – despite the warnings – leading to the spectacular collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge that injured 10 people. He also led stories, through a deep forensic analysis of Pittsburgh’s budget, that revealed the city in 2024 was heading toward insolvency with debts that far exceeded its dwindling tax revenues. As a result of the Post-Gazette’s series, Fiscal Cliff, the city made critical cuts in spending to stabilize the budget.

In 2023, his oversight of an investigative project that exposed the city of Pittsburgh’s ownership of hundreds of dangerous and decrepit houses led to city council passing reform legislation to get the homes upgraded and sold through a local land bank.

Only a handful of other journalism schools offer this kind of reporting immersion program, and the Lab is a clear standout. Students report out enterprise stories from the ground up and often receive bylines for their work.

They also have a unique opportunity to live and learn in Washington, D.C., where the Lab has new classrooms and meeting space in the heart of downtown a few blocks from the White House.

In a media industry that’s struggling economically, the Medill Lab could help fill a crucial need for Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, where large swaths of the region receive very little coverage.

In addition, the Lab also plays an important role in providing opportunities for a range of students from diverse backgrounds, many of whom have been hired by the Post-Gazette in recent years and have emerged as some of the newsroom’s top reporters.

These former students have covered major stories about the highly publicized acquisition of US Steel by Nippon, the disastrous derailment of railroad cars in East Palestine, Ohio, and critical security breakdowns during the assasination attempt on President Trump at the Butler rally.

The journalists we’ve hired from the Lab have had such a profound impact on our journalism. They’ve played an integral role in our coverage of some of the country’s most consequential stories, including the contentious 2024 presidential election, the black lung crisis plaguing our region’s coal mines, the struggle over the future of U.S. Steel, the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and many more. The common thread of these journalists has been their strong reporting and writing instincts, and an ability to use all the digital and investigative tools at their disposal.

— Stan Wischnowski, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Executive Editor

Through this proposed expansion, the Lab would become a force multiplier for the Post-Gazette newsroom and open the possibility of hiring additional practicing journalists, who, along with Mike, would work with the Lab’s graduate students (and top undergraduates) in producing important work.

Unlike start-up, nonprofit journalism ventures, the Lab has a unique advantage: There’s already an infrastructure in place, with offices at 1301 K Street NW in the same building as the Washington Post. Complete with classrooms, studios and video equipment, the Lab is part of a larger Medill School of Journalism D.C. campus that has existed in the nation’s capital for more than 40 years.

The goal now is to attract funding for three years, which would allow the program to produce the kind of award-winning journalism in the Pittsburgh area that could draw more support in the coming years.

The Lab is also seeking partial merit scholarships to help recruit the very best graduate students, including those with data journalism skills. In the past, scholarships have been named in honor of donors or their family members. The Lab plans to seek the guidance of the Post-Gazette’s current executive editor, Stan Wischnowski, who co-founded Spotlight PA in conjunction with the Lenfest Institute in 2019 when he served as executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Spotlight PA now serves more than 100 Pennsylvania news organizations as an independent nonprofit newsroom dedicated to public-service journalism that covers Pennsylvania state government and urgent statewide issues.

With the Medill School’s national reputation, the Lab could become a center of First Amendment studies, hosting panels with visiting journalists on issues impacting the public’s right to know and the role of the press in a time of great tumult and change.

We believe the expansion of the Lab in a partnership with the Post-Gazette, winner of Pennsylvania’s top news organization honor four straight years, is a win for local journalism and provides a pathway for the next generation to engage in a profession that we believe is more important now than ever.